The Howeitat: How Saudi Arabia Dismantled a Tribe to Build a City That Doesn't Exist

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Howeitat tribe displacement for NEOM is the central human-rights controversy behind Saudi Arabia’s flagship megaproject: roughly 20,000 residents were removed from ancestral lands through land acquisition, forced evictions, compensation pressure and security action. The al-Huwaitat are one of the great tribal confederations of the Arabian Peninsula, with territory spanning the mountains, wadis and coastal plains of northwestern Saudi Arabia.

In October 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced that their ancestral lands would become NEOM, a $500 billion megaproject that would house 9 million people in a 170-kilometre mirrored city, a mountain ski resort, a floating industrial platform, and a 400-metre cube. By April 2026, the project had spent $50 billion, produced 2.4 kilometres of foundation, and suspended construction. The Howeitat had been displaced. The city had not been built. The tribe paid the price for a civilisation that exists only in architectural renderings.

The Killing of Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti: The Man Who Filmed His Own Death to Stop NEOM

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The video was posted to social media on 12 April 2020, from the roof of a house in the village of al-Khuraybah in Tabuk province, northwestern Saudi Arabia. The man holding the camera was Abdul Rahim bin Ahmed Mahmoud al-Huwaiti, a 43-year-old employee of the Saudi Ministry of Finance. He spoke directly, without performance, without appeal to emotion. He said he did not want to leave his home. He said he did not want compensation. He pointed the camera toward the vehicles assembling on the roads below — security forces from the Saudi state, sent to enforce an eviction order he had refused to accept.

Forced-Displacement on SAUDI VISION 2030 Intelligence Platform

The Howeitat: How Saudi Arabia Dismantled a Tribe to Build a City That Doesn't Exist

The Killing of Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti: The Man Who Filmed His Own Death to Stop NEOM